March Wrap-Up and a Look to April

When I first looked ahead to March, I wrote that one of my goals was to get caught up with books I’ve accepted for review consideration. Looking back on the month, I think I was half successful with that goal — I’ve read all but one of the books I had on my plate for March, but I am woefully behind on writing reviews for them. Here’s what I finished this month:

From the short list of links, you can see how far behind I am on writing reviews… which is too bad, because nearly all of the books I read this month were fantastic. March was my best reading month in recent memory.

And Looking to April…

I actually did a pretty good job limiting the review copies I accepted for the month of April (May, however, is a totally different story… but we’ll get there in a month!). Here’s what I’ve got on my plate this month:

Butterfly’s Child by Angela Davis-Gardner for a TLC Book Tour

Winged Obsession by Jessica Speart, true crime nonfiction about the illegal butterfly industry (how much more quirky and fascinating could you get?)

City of Scoundrels by Gary Krist, subtitle: “The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago”

The Floor of Heaven by Howard Blum, the story of three men (a detective, a gold-discovering former Marine, and a predator-conman with a vast criminal empire) during the Yukon Gold Rush

I also finally got John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars from the library, so I’ll be digging into that in the next couple of weeks. Probably when I’m in the mood for a good cry, because I don’t think there’s any way a book about teenagers with terminal cancer isn’t going to make me sob.

Oh, and some poetry! April is National Poetry Month, so I’d like to read at least one book of poetry during the month. I have a Billy Collins collection I haven’t read yet, Ballistics, and also recently bought a collection of Adrienne Rich’s poems, The Dream of a Common Language. Both of those sound great.

And then there are all the books on my Shelf of Doom. I haven’t been making good progress on that pile — I’ve just finished one so far — but maybe I can knock off a couple this month. I really, really want to read Possession by A.S. Byatt, but I haven’t been able to get into it yet. I think it just needs some sustained attention, and despite reading like a madwoman in March, I just couldn’t give it the time it needed.

Regarding THE FLOOR OF HEAVEN, there is good news and bad. The good news is that I am currently working with the screenplay writer for the big screen version of the book! The bad news is that the book is wholly and intentionally inaccurate and should not be considered non-fiction.

I am a historian, author, and descendant of Soapy Smith, the bad guy in the book with whom Mr. Blum used my book as a source for his. Unfortunately, he chose to include a lot of fictional events in his book which is fine, but his book is actually defined as a historical novel over that of non-fiction. Sadly, there is not a single shred of information showing that the three key characters in his book ever met.

Of the three characters, Soapy Smith is by far the most interesting. I invite all to visit my sites.

Well, even if the review writing is going slowly, you’ve read a lot of the books, which is half the struggle. Billy Collins is a favourite of mine, too, though I haven’t bought a collection of his in awhile. I suppose it would be very predictable to do so in April…